Short-Term Fulfillment: How Supervisors’ Motives for Abusive Behaviors Influence Need Satisfaction and Daily Outcomes

Existing research assumes that supervisors invariably feel bad after engaging in abusive behaviors. We challenge this assumption by proposing that supervisors’ motives of abusive supervision shape their post-abuse experiences. Drawing on the social interactionist theory of aggression and theories of self-regulation, we suggest that instrumental (or goal-driven) abusive behaviors provide a temporary sense of fulfillment, whereas spontaneous (or reactive, emotionally-driven) abusive behaviors diminish need satisfaction and foster negative outcomes. Using an exploratory study and an event-contingent experiencing sampling study, we found that supervisors may justify their abuse with effecting compliance motives when subordinates perform poorly, which fulfills task achievement needs and increases next-day work engagement. Similarly, supervisors may also justify their abuse with identity maintenance motives when subordinates are disrespectful, thus enhancing social identity needs and next-day organizational-based self-esteem. We also found that when supervisors justify their abusive behaviors with spontaneous motives (i.e., depletion and negative affect), it has negative implications for need satisfaction and outcomes. Lastly, we highlight supervisor’s psychological power as a boundary condition of these effects. All told, our findings indicate that, at the within-person level, supervisors’ daily motives for abusive behaviors matter, given that certain motives actually yield short-term benefits for supervisors.